This is vital reading for anyone who wishes to understand the nature of prayer. Down to earth and accessible, yet applauded for its scholarship, it is 'truly exciting to read' and full of help and sympathy for the Christian who finds prayer difficult. Truly breathtaking in its scope, this important study deserves its reputation as a contemporary spiritual classic.

This magisterial book examines the changing nature of Christian worship from the earliest years of the New Testament to the liquid modern world. Discounting any notion of an idealized vision of past which each generation seeks to recreate, this groundbreaking book shows that the nature of worship has always involved compromise with public life and has borrowed from the drama of the theatre. He reveals how worship evolved and changed through the great east-west divide, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment and the 19th century reaction to it. As in his previous, highly praised book, George...